As cellular networks develop, the want for high Quality of Service (QoS) coupled with a shortage of wireless spectrum makes it challenging for network operators to meet multiple users' bandwidth and/or throughput demands simultaneously. Heterogeneous Networks (HetNet) implement multiple antenna schemes/technologies at Access Nodes (ANs) and/or wireless devices to exploit multipath propagation behaviors and drastically increase spectral efficiencies through spatial multiplexing (i.e., enabling multiple transmit (Tx) and/or receive (Rx) antennas at ANs and/or wireless devices to transfer data at a same time using separately encoded data signals and/or explicit symbols), which increases signal-capturing power and improves link reliability through the use of transmit diversity (i.e., explicit space-time coding to improve reliability of fading wireless links).
The performance of spatial multiplexing and/or transmit diversity at ANs and/or wireless devices depends strongly on channel properties of a given communication link (e.g., between ANs and/or wireless devices). Because Tx/Rx antennas deployed at ANs and/or wireless devices are arbitrarily selected, ANs and/or wireless devices may select Tx/Rx antennas experiencing degraded channel properties to, for example, send encoded data signals and/or explicit symbols. In such cases, decoding of the data signals and/or explicit symbols at a receiver (e.g., ANs and/or wireless devices) is likely to fail due to poor signal and/or noise conditions, which reduces overall network efficiencies and throughput.
OVERVIEW
Systems and methods are described for implementing an enhanced multi-antenna transmission scheme. For example, two or more antennas of a multi-antenna system that meet a criteria may be selected. The selected two or more antennas may be used to simultaneously transmit at least one explicit symbol to a pre-configured receiver. Implicit information (e.g., transmitted with the explicit symbols and/or based on the selected two or more antennas) may be decoded at the receiver based on the selected antennas.
In another instance, implicit transmit symbols are assigned to a plurality of antennas of the multi-antenna system. At least two antennas are selected from the plurality of antennas to simultaneously transmit explicit symbols to at least one wireless device. The implicit symbols are decoded at the at least one wireless device based on the selected two or more antennas.